The Lovers of Pound Hill

by Mavis Cheek

  Montmorency, not privy to poetry of any kind, not even Eliot’s cats, staggered back across the silvery street to Hill View House and flopped, exhausted, into the basket in the kitchen. So that was what that yowling he found himself doing was all about. He slept.

  Three

  THE LAST TOUCHES of work on the Hill went smoothly and the weather remained fair. And even though she had neared the end of the project Molly still refused to let Miles come anywhere near the site.

  ‘I am the owner of the Hill,’ he said. ‘And I should see what you have found before anyone else.’

  But Molly was adamant. ‘We have an agreement,’ she said firmly. ‘And I would ask you to keep to it. If not …’

  Dorcas agreed solemnly with Miles that the girl was playing with him, dangling his hopes over a cliff-edge. But when he asked Dorcas what he could do about it, Dorcas replied that she could think of nothing. She spent so much more money, she told him, on attempting to get Molly to impart information in the pub, but none was forthcoming. He did not dare break the undertaking, not so close to the end of the job and he knew that he needed her goodwill in order to progress his plans. He stayed away. Thus, apart from the odd grunt of delight or surprise or confirmation, the two women worked on the Gnome in happy silence while the skylarks larked above them and the squealing kites went round and round in the clear blue yonder.

  The last few days of tidying and setting up the excavation for visitors were days of pleasure – of easy work, slow and methodical, without any difficulties. ‘I think,’ said Molly to Winifred, as they walked down the Hill with their mission complete, ‘that I shall probably never unearth anything quite so profound. Or beautiful.’ Winifred nodded and wondered why she was close to tears. She had been laughing with Molly not five minutes ago. She supposed it was partly because of what they had found, and partly because it was over, or nearly. Soon she must go back to being the doctor’s wife, betwixt and between in the village, with even her role as head cook and bottle washer undermined. She might, she thought, be forgiven for feeling wistful as the final Sunday drew near.

  Dorcas met them at the door of the pub and the three went in together, looking maddeningly delighted with themselves. Miles, standing at his window opposite, felt a rage he could scarcely contain at such a display of feminine conspiracy. However, he would not risk transgressing and so he remained where he was, sipping a glass of inferior sherry while in the Old Holly Bush the three women raised a glass of good wine to the success of the enterprise. Then Dorcas said to Molly, ‘And now you’ll be waiting for your explorer man to come home, yes?’ To which Molly, looking even more mysterious than she usually did at the mention of Freddy, said that she certainly was, oh she certainly was. ‘Here’s to the wanderer’s return,’ she said, to which they all agreed.

  Julie Barnsley, now restored to her place behind the bar, nearly all traces of her bruises having vanished, raised her glass of lemon barley water to the sentiment. When Molly bloody Bonner was safely re-stowed into her young man’s arms, then perhaps Julie Barnsley could reapply herself to Nigel. At the moment he was safe enough playing silly arses with Marion on their travels around the area as they followed that old map. Julie would not interfere with that. Nigel looked so stupid on his pony that even Julie had difficulty watching him, let alone anyone else.

  She tried not to think badly of being attached to such an idiot for life. But still. Needs must, as she had told Peter, who had merely nodded and said, ‘Yep.’ If Julie wished for a stronger response from her boss, she did not get one. Just as well, she told herself. Julie would not like a difficult scene when she returned to her own home. She would take her wedding magazines and depart very soon. Another bonus was that by staying away from her intended she had achieved, she knew, one significant advance – Nigel’s father no longer looked at her with that glittering eye of his, or sometimes went pale like a man who has seen a ghost and wishes to murder it. If, indeed, you could murder ghosts. Anyway, even he had a rosy, benign look about him nowadays and managed – occasionally – to smile at her. I’m not dead yet, she thought, smiling back, even though I came close. And she shivered at the memory of the broken quad bike.

  The announcement that Molly had pinned up in the pub to the effect that the villagers were welcome to come up and see the results of her work on a certain Sunday in June was noted and approved of by many. At last, they said. And now it was nearly done, nearly completed, and this should have been a time for Molly to celebrate. ‘Amen,’ said Molly. But as the three women sat together in their usual place, Molly, toying with her glass, had a faraway look in her eyes. ‘Are you thinking about your man?’ asked Dorcas, wistfully.

  ‘No,’ said Molly. ‘As a matter of fact, I was thinking about something that just will not stop niggling away at me. Something my grandfather wrote. I can’t get a handle on it. He was usually so clear in his writing, though I think he liked puns, according to my grandmother.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Winifred. ‘The Victorians liked all that sort of thing. Parlour games and plays on words. What’s this niggling thing?’

  ‘Might as well,’ said Dorcas, ‘see if we can help.’

  ‘It’s such a small thing,’ said Molly, feeling embarrassed.

  ‘Go on,’ they said.

  ‘Well – he wrote this thing about the excavation on the Hill and that it would “displace the Marvell” – or something like that, only he spelt it wrong and anyway, I don’t understand it. And he’d underlined something about grave thoughts …’

  Dorcas and Winifred understood the significance at once. They nodded at each other and winked. Molly, still confounded by the thought, did not notice. It was not often, in the case of the Gnome of Pound Hill, that Winifred and Dorcas knew more than Miss Bonner.

  ‘Any thoughts?’ asked Molly.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Dorcas.

  ‘Tomorrow, perhaps?’ said Winifred.

  Molly was on the point of tipping her drink over them both, which would have interested Dr Porlock who had just entered the pub in search of his wife for the coq au vin was awaiting them (Waitrose, two portions, £6.60 and he was going to lie about it, which was Dryden Fellows’s suggestion and a good one). Cooking, he now knew, was exhausting to think up. Winifred had never complained about it and he took his hat off to her for never giving him the same meal twice in a row.

  ‘Winnie?’ he said.

  Both Dorcas and Winifred stood up to leave.

  Molly, who for so long had kept the villagers at bay, would now have some of her own medicine.

  The day of the Sermon on the Mount, as the vicar insisted on calling it, arrived clear skied and already warm.

  He rose and thanked God for the sunshine before taking his breakfast in his nightshirt. It would not do to get porridge (summer and winter, Scotts rolled oats, £2.30 a kilo) over the new and beautiful vestments he intended to wear. He had purchased a nice white alb over which he would place a green cincture. Very appropriate. It was, he thought as he stirred in his sugar, a great pity that the date fell in Church Ordinary – so that green was all he could aspire to.

  How much more delightful it would have been for it to have occurred in Easter red or Lenten violet. Ah well, he would show his patrons how – nevertheless – he could shine. Then they would surely see the value of him. ‘I could give you sermons like that every day,’ would be his line to the Fitzhartletts, ‘if only I could see my congregation.’ And then he would request, once more and with great feeling, a new pulpit. There was a very fine one on which he had set his heart (Victorian stonework, the circular section body with a pedimented niche to the front and bands of quatrefoils and naturalistic foliage above an open arcade raised on cylindrical columns all raised on a drum base and polygonal foot, with stone steps and gilt metal handrail. £16,000. He loved the grandeur of Imperial Victorian). At a pinch, there was always carved oak.

  He sang in the shower. ‘In heavenly love abiding, no change my heart shall fear …’ Why that popped into his head he d
id not know, but he sang it with gusto. God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform, he thought. ‘… and He will walk with me-ee.’ Short, tall, medium – He would not judge a man on the length of his thigh bone.

  Sir Roger, who was never one to rise early except on hunting days, tottered across the room and knocked on Dulcima’s door. Dulcima continued to refuse to sleep in the same bed with him, which was not quite so necessary now that she did not tend to take a little snifter to bed with her, but still … Her husband, as if offering her the crown jewels of England, had reluctantly suggested that for her the dogs could remain downstairs, but still she demurred. Occasionally, but not very often now that his wife seemed rather more alert, the Master of the House (which Orridge called him with a very sardonic smile) sneaked one of the dogs up to his room, which, he found, soothed his loneliness considerably. If he remembered rightly, and he could just about do so, he used to stroke Dulcima like that. And pat her. And sometimes she growled. And sometimes – she didn’t.

  Dulcima was already up, sitting at her dressing table, sipping what smelled to her husband like an infusion of old straw. The sunlight played about her head making a halo of light as she brushed out her curls – and her neck looked as long and delicately curved as a snipe’s. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘you are up. Well done. Looking forward to the Sermon on the Mount?’

  Her husband grimaced and then growled. ‘I’d like someone to mount him, puffed up Godbotherer. What’s it all about?’

  ‘Now Roger,’ said Dulcima. ‘Go and get dressed and then we’ll walk up the Hill together. Marion, of course, intends to ride. Though whether she will actually go up the Hill or not, I couldn’t say. She says she’ll try. If Nigel will go with her.’ He stomped back to his own room. ‘Oh and Roger –’

  He turned, he growled. ‘Yes?’

  ‘No dogs.’

  The door between the two rooms slammed shut.

  ‘And no guns.’

  Nigel put the last of the polishing equipment away and surveyed the gun. Then he slipped it into an Emmebi soft case in Alba leather (£200) which he took the liberty of extracting from Sir Roger’s stores since he seemed to have several all the same with no guns to go in them, these having been stamped on. According to Marion her mother had bought her father one of these every year for yonks and never remembered that she had. Nigel slid the beautiful Churchill inside the case and stroked the leather. Perfect.

  He had not told his father that the gun was finished; he had not even told him he was working on the gun. His father thought he was working on a nineteenth-century armoire while his father restored a nineteenth-century mahogany partners desk with three drawers to frieze. The Churchill, so his father had said, had lost some of its relevance and could wait. Nigel seemed to be doing well enough without it. Well – it had not waited and now it was done. Nigel would surprise them both, Sir Roger and Dad, and also show his mettle – but to whom, exactly, he was not entirely sure … Once upon a time, of course, it would have been Molly he wished to impress. The thought never entered his head.

  As Nigel propped the gun up against the wall and hung his waterproof over it, Dryden Fellows appeared at the top of the stairs. For a moment, in the gloom of the passageway, as Nigel looked up at his father, Dryden thought he was looking down upon Lottie. He put his hand to his heart and gave a little moan. But the fear was dispelled the moment Nigel called up and said ‘Anything the matter, Dad?’ And, in the usual way, Dryden covered up any emotional confusion by shouting to his son that he wished he would not hang around in dark places and nearly give his father a heart attack. Nigel, quite used to such a response, paid no attention.

  Lottie had been appearing rather less since Dryden’s visits to Dr Porlock’s surgery. Although she had not entirely disappeared, she was beginning to look a little more cheerful. Well, maybe not cheerful – but perhaps not quite so sad. If you could say that a spectre had a bit more colour in its cheeks, then Lottie did. But still, and always, there was that twinge of doubt, twinge of guilt, twinge of fear every time he saw her – or it. He longed for her to smile and wave and say goodbye for good. But how to effect this, Dryden had no idea. Porlock, reading to him from a medical book he had purchased precisely, he said, for Dryden’s benefit, said that he had to go through the experience until its meaning was clear and then he could resolve that meaning – and it would be over. The problem was, whatever the meaning was, he had no idea about that either. Still, it was unlikely that she’d follow them up the Hill. Lottie had not approved of the Gnome and thought it ought to be removed. She called it an alien, and Dryden had laughed at her stupidity. Mistake. Big Mistake. How many of those had he made over the years, and now she had come to haunt him for it. He always felt a little lurch somewhere above his stomach when he thought of her all alone in that graveyard – but he rather wished, all the same, that she would stay there.

  Miles Whittington did not need to rise early, he was already awake and up and about and making what Montmorency considered an unnecessary noise in the kitchen. Cats need their sleep even if human men do not, and Montmorency was never one to forget his feline rights. There were silver linings, though; nowadays Miles invariably put too much milk in the saucepan, a rare oversight producing even rarer waste, and then left it on the draining board for later use. Montmorency always obliged … He needed it to keep his strength up.

  Taking his toast and tea over to the window, Miles sat where he had sat when Molly Bonner first appeared in this room and made her heart-stirring offer. He looked up at the Hill, still morning-shadowed, and felt a tremendous stab of excitement. Today was going to be a day to remember, he thought, he could feel it in his bones. Why – he looked down at his toast and considered – why – he might put a bit of butter on for a change – maybe even some marmalade (Winifred Porlock, two years ago, Seville and ginger, free as no one at the Bring & Buy had wanted to) – and with a song in his heart and a clatter in his activities he set about creating the feast.

  He returned to the window seat and began to visualise the gate at the entrance to the Hill, the tickets being issued for the exchange of notes, the path upwards and the roofed and door-wayed structure that housed the find. Doors that would be locked against anyone who did not wish to pay to see the sight. So – that was two fees before he had even started on the franchise material: one to gain access to the remarkable Hill itself, and two to be privy to the Hill’s most notorious image – and whatever else it was that they had found up there. Obviously the treasure would not be left in situ – that would be his – but the site itself could stay as a reminder of the joy of discovery. He just wished he knew what he was fantasising about. What it was those three witches had discovered. And – he looked at his watch – he soon would. Only a little while longer and all would be revealed. All. Why, he might even have a second piece of toast – he looked longingly at the crumbs on his plate, but no – better not. It didn’t do to get carried away with things. Let the vision of the future be good enough to fill him, mind and body: control of the Hill, control of the Gnome, control of whatever it was they had found up there, and income. Money. It was impossible for Miles not to rejoice secretly in Robin’s disappearance now. None of this would have been his, none of it. He would have gone on sleeping in the small back room, while Robin had the large room at the front (now Miles’s) – and even if the back room was no smaller than his brother’s – it felt like it. Now he had the whole house, the whole universe that he looked out upon – everything, everything was under his control. Including Dorcas. It felt marvellous.

  Montmorency was deeply, deeply surprised to be woken by the stroking of an unfamiliar hand on his ears. He opened his eyes, took one look, thought, Why this is hell, nor am I out of it, and closed them again. It was too much to bear. Where was his beloved Dorcas when he needed her? Come to that, where was his true master, Robin?

  Strangely at that hour, having knocked gently on the door, Dorcas was being ushered into the Old Holly Bush. Fortunately she had had the good s
ense to check if Miles was stationed at his window and to wait until he was out of sight. Dorcas did not want Miles to summon her before she was up the Hill and away. But she did need to speak to Peter Hanker first, to reassure him of something.

  In she went. Her conversation was short and to the point and left all three of them – for Julie too was there – giggling rather naughtily. Sometimes, thought Dorcas, living in Lufferton Boney was like being back at school – with Miles as the wicked headmaster. The three of them did their best to stop the naughty giggles and just about managed it so long as they did not catch each other’s eye. It was not very suitable behaviour for a day such as today, as they all concurred – but impossible to resist. For Miles, who had smiled so obligingly at the suggestion, thought that the little party Peter Hanker suggested should be given after the trip up the Hill was to be paid for by Peter Hanker. Instead, Dorcas had instructed the landlord to send the bill, made out to Miles, to her for payment, and she would pay it out of the emergency fund. This emergency fund, about which Miles had – strangely – forgotten – was set up a couple of years ago when Miles had to have his carpal tunnel operation and could no longer sign cheques. It was therefore necessary for Dorcas to be able to go to the bank and remove cash.

  ‘So let’s make it champagne,’ she said as she left. ‘It’s not every day you discover something so beautiful …’

  Before either of them could ask her what she meant, she was across the road and knocking on the door of Hill View House and encouraging Miles to set off in half an hour. ‘And not a moment before, Miles,’ she said as she left. ‘Or that girl will have your guts for garters and send you back down again.’ Although it sounded very much as if she were joking, nevertheless Miles felt it sensible to do as Dorcas said. He was still in his dressing gown so he would have time to make a careful toilette. Good.